Tumors of the colon and rectum are a major health problem: in 2002 alone, a million new cancer cases occurred in the world, resulting in ˜590,000 deaths. Half of the population of the United States will develop at least one benign colorectal tumor, and in one-tenth of these, the tumors will eventually become malignant.
Although genetic alterations in tyrosine kinases (TKs) have been firmly implicated in tumorigenesis, only a few serine/threonine kinases (STKs) are known to be mutated in human cancers1-4. There is a continuing need in the art to identify genes which are mutated in cancer and which may be good candidates for pharmacological intervention.